EMPIRE OF ASH
"At the summit of the world, there stands a great Scourge of Darkness. Upon his head sits a crown of stars. In one hand he holds a set of scales and in the other a thunderbolt, a corpse-pale figure leading riders of red and black and white." - The Oracle of Keraphion, 30 ABY
It goes without saying that any Sith Lord's reign is a reign of terror. On its best day, "urban hellscape" would have been a generous description of Coruscant, but its new conquerors had made it even worse. Palpatine no longer cared about appearances, choosing instead to revel in his unlimited power. Decadent festivals for the First Order's political elite were common, employing thousands of press-ganged proles from the lower levels. The deformed, the disfigured, and the poor were paraded before Palpatine and Snoke to reenact scenes from famous plays and historical wars, to the delight of cackling dark lords. Part of the Senate Plaza had been converted into a lake of wine, around which had been planted a synthetic forest from whose branches hung skewers of flesh for the nobility to eat. An anonymous source from the Imperial Palace staff claimed that the Emperors' throne room contained scores of chained slaves on torture devices behind shield walls, with each wall slaved to the thrones' controls so that Palpatine and Snoke could choose when to listen to their screams.
Excesses committed by First Order troops were not just ignored, but outright encouraged. Civilian homes were invaded, businesses were ransacked, religious centers were desecrated, and vast quantities of property were confiscated. Eventually, the purges and looting just became another part of the daily routine, like the sound of a commuter train or the stench of litter. Occasionally, the followers of one faith or another would attempt to worship in secret, but the Emperor's many eyes ensured that such covens were quickly and gruesomely purged. The corpses of Jedi and other religious leaders were displayed in public or paraded through the streets, left to rot in the sun as a message to all those who would defy the First Order. Libraries and universities were torched, and scholars were executed. Millennia of knowledge turned to ash, including thousands of irreplaceable texts on engineering, physics, chemistry, and biology.
Pestilence wracked Coruscant's lower levels. The few hospitals still operational on Coruscant were reserved for the First Order's political elite. Even then, waiting times for medical services stretched into the infinite due to staff shortages and the inscrutable new bureaucracy of the First Order. Lower-class public baths, aqueducts, and lower-level sewage systems also fell into severe disrepair from lack of maintenance. Public street sweeping and utilities maintenance services suffered heavily under the First Order's withholding of funds. The streets became choked with refuse. Of course, this being Coruscant, few people could be bothered to care unless they were directly affected. A hundred million more people dying of plague this year was the equivalent of a rounding error in a population of one trillion. Fires were all too frequent as well. Coruscant's fire departments had fallen under the control of Otha Parmenia, a notoriously corrupt and lazy Minister of Finance. When a property caught fire, Parmenia would withhold the fire brigades' services unless the property owner sold the land for a below-market price, at which point she would put out the fire and lease the land to new tenants. Many even suspected the Minister and her men of secretly starting the fires themselves.
Famines were a frequent nuisance as well on occupied Coruscant. While the quality of First Order logistics varied across the galaxy, the supply train connected to the fleet led by Palpatine and Snoke was nevertheless highly robust and competent, certainly capable of handling the food shipments necessary to feed the galactic center. And it did, but only for the First Order's troops and upper crust. First Order elites often held grandiose feasts in palatial penthouses, and even the common troops ate well for a time as a reward for their contribution to the Emperor's triumphant return. All this came at a cost to the common citizenry, who faced rapidly inflating food prices and dwindling supplies. The few citizens who still had the strength and will to riot were violently put down, while countless others starved to death.
With Coruscant conquered, First Order forces poured into the breach in New Republic lines, threatening to split the rest of NR space down the middle. The new conquests fared little better than Coruscant, with First Order troops sacking, looting, and razing worlds as they went. The cosmos was filled with smoke and blood, and the polities of the galactic east struggled to maintain their borders amid an ever-growing tide of refugees. Many of these refugees were carried disease, spreading the Coruscant Plagues wherever they went. Where the New Republic's citizens emigrated, nomadic cosmo-barbarian tribes immigrated, setting up shop amid the hastily abandoned spires. These tribes were mostly ignorant of city-building and infrastructure, and thus were unable to maintain the utilities, roads, and ports that they now possessed. Knowledge of engineering and the sciences was scarce among many tribes, jealously guarded by the learned upper crust of their societies and passed on only in hereditary fashion. Knowledge was power. Knowledge was job security. The scarcer your skill set, the more irreplaceable you became.
As the First Order and its vassals preyed upon the inner New Republic hyperlanes, economies broke down even further. Faith in the New Republic credit had already evaporated. Planetary lords began to issue their own currencies. Private interstellar trade slowed as conditions became ever more dangerous for those who did not swear allegiance to the First Order. Industries and planets heavily reliant on imports and exports began to languish under the increase of banditry. The loss of Coruscant as a shipping hub also disrupted commerce. Shipping costs steadily climbed as traders were forced to reroute their freight through more circuitous, less secure hyperlanes. Many planets considered giving up on interstellar trade entirely as the New Republic's trade network began to break down, preferring to look inward as First Order raids began to reach the heart of the Republic's economic heartland. In the lands of the dying New Republic, the last embers of industry and good civilization began to sputter and die. But even as darkness descended in the galactic west, others elsewhere continued to rage against the dying of the light.
FAITH, STEEL, AND GUNSMOKE
First settled during the Pius Dea Era, the Saint's Trail was named after Saint Joyeuse, a farm girl from the agri-world of Betaine. Joyeuse's history is long and full of conflicting accounts, but there are a few threads that most historians and theologians generally agree on. The Saint quickly gained a following along the Trail when she began performing miracles to cure the Betainian Plague. The Pius Dea cult, deeming Joyeuse's faith heretical, launched a number of crusades on the Trail, only to be beaten back when the Trail's myriad armies united under Joyeuse's banner. Joyeuse and her companions spent many years beating back invaders and pirates, only for the Saint to meet her end slaying the black dragon Rahab. Laid to rest at the sacred Grail Springs of Tiresia, the Saint continued to be an object of worship along the Trail for millennia. Now, as the First Order sought to lay claim to the hyperlanes near Sith Space, the Saint's Trail returned once more to the stage of history. The Host of Sinners, a cultist army formed under the banner of Marduk Ghul, advanced down the Trail, despoiling its temple worlds. With the good king Antiphon IX murdered on Nis, Ghul turned his horde's attentions to Tiresia.
When the Host of Sinners arrived on Tiresia, it descended as a disparate collection of warbands. Of these cults, the most dangerous by far were the Hesperian Hetairoi, the Tanntay steppe raiders, the Nisian Chalkaspides, and the Wolf Cults of Fjonir. These warbands were regiments of renown, either professionally trained or raised from feared warrior kingdoms in contrast to the peasant rabble that made up the expendable majority of Ghul's armies. While Skywalker and the Wraiths slowed the enemy by waging a guerrilla war with Tiresia's scattered militias, Korr rallied other the free worlds of the Saint's Trail, bringing much-needed support to the besieged Tiresians.
Ghul had hoped for a speedy conquest like at Nis, but the Tiresians' stubborn defense had forced his troops into a longer campaign than he had supplies for. His forces only had enough food to last through autumn, insufficient cold-weather gear, and no way to safely forage when the countryside was filled with Tiresian raiding parties. Expendable though they were, Ghul's followers had to be alive to secure the First Order's objectives along the Trail. With winter rapidly approaching and both armies converging on the Grail Springs, Ghul decided to gamble his invasion force's fortunes on a single decisive pitched battle.
On the eve of the battle, a vision of the Saint allegedly appeared before four of Tiresia's defenders: Ben Skywalker, Jaden Korr, Patriarch Soter IV of the Tiresian Church, and Orn Blackhand of the Church's mercenary Hersir Guard. Warning them of the coming darkness, the Saint bade them drink deep from the Springs to protect their souls and bodies. A vibrant font of life and light, the Grail Springs were thought to be a nexus infused with the Light Side of the Force.
At daybreak, Ghul marched on the Grail Cathedral. Endless hosts blanketed the landscape, a thousand banners fluttering in the wind. In truth, Ghul's mortal armies were a distraction to draw attention away from his true trump card: the bones of Rahab. As the Host of Sinners clashed with Tiresia's defenders, Ghul's acolytes did their work at the dragon's grave. Through dark rituals, the Knight of Ren used the bones to call out across the stars to one of Rahab's kin, the very same dragon that had brought two Corellian fleets to ruin. As the ancient leviathan descended, the skies turned a sickly color and the world dropped to its knees. At the mere sight of the beast, all knew its name: Gamaliel. Gamaliel. Gamaliel. Twisted and terrible, its scales and flesh flowed like water. Here was a creature versed in the ancient Sith sciences. Eternally in flux, Gamaliel was the embodiment of alchemical turmoil, the very land and creatures warping under its terrible radiance. Water turned to blood. Plants grew, died, regrew, and mutated uncontrollably. Living men turned into mindless horrors of twisted bone and meat, while the dead melted into primordial fluid. Where it walked, the ground glittered as base minerals transmuted into "noble" metals. The Armies of the Saint flocked to the side of the Grail-Blessed, whose very presence seemed to counteract the dragon's chaotic energies.
While Tiresia's defenders could stand against mortal armies, their weapons and fortifications were utterly ineffective against the dragon. Durasteel blades and depleted uranium munitions turned to bronze in Gamaliel's presence, and what few weapons did penetrate its thick hide were negated by the beast's rapid regeneration. Against such a foe, the Armies of the Saint could do little but retreat to the warded walls surrounding the Grail Cathedral. But even those ramparts could not hold out indefinitely.
It is often said that power comes in response to a need. As Ghul and his forces surged through a breach, Skywalker and Blackhand rallied the surviving Hersirs to plug the gap. An ancient shackle broke, bathing the world in light. Galatine, transfigured, etched a new name upon the consciousness of every man who bore witness that day. Excalibur glowed with an awesome power, its burning blade crying out to grasp victory. It was a light of reborn glory, a gold experience, a sword of kings. When it shined, darkness faded. Of the champions that jostled to slay the Grail-Blessed, none survived. The Grail-Blessed seemed tireless, fighting with speed and strength far beyond normal men. Ariq Khan of the Tanntay fell first, bisected at the waist. Antarchon and Epigonus of the Hesperian Hetairoi were killed in the same mighty swing. The Sith torturer Sitri fled screaming as Excalibur's radiance set her robes ablaze. Cleander of the Chalkaspides was cut down by the Hersir Guard, his shield splintered by vibroaxes and his breastplate pierced by point-blank gunfire. Ulv of Fjonir met the business end of Blackhand's ACP scattergun. The unclean recoiled as their alchemical enhancements withered in the presence of the Saint's chosen. For a moment, it seemed as if even Ghul had been slain, only for his "corpse" to dissolve into a mass of retreating worms. Then Gamaliel approached, forcing Blackhand and the Hersirs to retreat with its burning breath. Skywalker was cast aside with bone-breaking force, but not before carving a burning fissure into the dragon's chest. Unlike other wounds, however, this new injury did not heal, the flesh and scales around it suddenly inert. Korr carried the ancient rifle Failnaught, a Great Hunt relic built to pierce the tough hides of sithspawn. Seeing the opening, Korr fired shot after shot into Gamaliel's chest wound, even piercing one of its black hearts. But star dragons do not grow old without having escape plans. The dragon called out to the alchemical spawn in Ghul's army, using them as meat shields while it made a hasty retreat.
At the same time, Patriarch Soter received word of incoming reinforcements from across the planet as pilgrims rushed to protect the Saint's resting place. Emboldened, he rallied the Cathedral's defenders, pushing the enemy back outside the walls. Over the next few days, the Host of Sinners mounted additional attacks on the Grail Springs, only to be repulsed each time. With their supplies dwindling, the temperature dropping, and news of additional Tiresian reinforcements, Ghul's surviving lieutenants ordered a retreat back to Nis. Though the Tiresian militias harried them every step of the way back to their transports, Ghul and his forces were able to escape to fight another day.
In the wake of Ghul's retreat, Blackhand was simultaneously granted an honorable discharge from his duties to the Tiresian clergy and inducted into the New Jedi Order, having tested positive for Force sensitivity. Remarkably, Skywalker and Korr both walked away from the Tiresia mission far less injured than they should have been. Despite suffering multiple injuries from envenomed blades and infected bites, Korr appeared to suffer no ill effects save for conventional wounds and was back in action after a week of rest. Where a normal man would have been killed outright by a blow from Gamaliel, Skywalker "merely" needed extensive bone grafting, cybernetic reinforcement, bacta treatment, physical therapy, and a temporary rebreather. Naturally, Wraith Squadron celebrated the return of their newly chromed Jedi point man with a cornucopia of bacta-flavored snacks and Darth Vader memorabilia. Both the NJO and Corellian medical experts expressed considerable interest in studying the Grail Springs' medicinal properties, but the Tiresian Church's reluctance to open the Springs to such study kept the Grail waters a mystery for the ages.
Though the Battle of Tiresia was a victory for the Corellian Treaty and its new allies, it was a bittersweet one. At the strategic level, the First Order had come out of the Saint's Trail campaign with a net profit. Most of the hyperlane's planets and resources were in First Order control and the majority of its military losses had been inflicted upon expendable vassal armies rather than the First Order proper. Even the few Knights of Ren killed in the campaign were easily replaced given the number of planets the First Order had conquered since the war began. That being said, the war for the Saint's Trail was far from over. Tiresia and her allies were eager to sign the Corellian Treaty, well aware of the Trail's strategic value on the galactic stage. The hyperlane's proximity to Sith Space made it an ideal avenue of invasion into the heart of the First Order's operations in the galactic east, a fact that Corellian Treaty brass knew all too well. In the war for the galactic east, one objective now mattered above all else: Korriban delenda est.